Colombia, Myanmar, Thailand and us

THIS paper’s headline last Monday grabbed me by the scruff of my neck: “Duterte releases P2B for quake victims.”

Under what authority, we weren’t told. Was it to imply that he had to be credited for such allocation? He has the power of the sword—but the power of the purse?

But, he has also threatened to neuter Congress and even the Supreme Court. His tutas tell us we should be “creative” in discerning when he is just humoring us. Some Palace mouthpiece then said no such P2 billion for the victims at all. Now there is. Ang gulo.

It seems he wants the credit for doing the right thing but it should be done in the right way, lest Budget Sec Ben Diokno go catatonic looking and scratching for what Digong vows to give. More taxes then?

Again, Digong “sent a chilling message to . . . individuals who had not been paying correct taxes…`You sons of bitches, pay up, I will kill you’.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 7, 2017.)

But, what if the SOB is Manny Pacquiao,as perceived by ex-BIR chief Kim Henares, who said he owes billions? The new kids on the block propositioned Manny, why not just pay 1B? Will Digong again say, “kayo naman di na nabiro.” No kill-kill-kill when it comes to tutas.

Digong cannot convict anyone, either. That is the task of the judiciary. He is to do justice to everyone. Even Manny deserves what Erap would say “overdue process.” Indeed, everyone deserves due process, not only wealthy Manny, miners, and widows of alien businessmen. Komikero Digong cannot provide too much comic relief. Nakakabagot at nakakaalibadbad na. It is now said only two out of five utterances of his should be taken seriously. The other three, jokes. Predictability gone. We can only go by the crystal ball and risk eating shards of broken glass.

It is for PNP Chief Bato de la Rosa that Mon Tulfo sees a future in comedy. Another seeming comedian is Manny who says he will now fight in Dubai. Kuno. And he weirdly asks his countless fans who they would pick for him to fight next. Novel and bizarre. Too many blows in the head? But, who’s interested in this fight of a 38-year-old facing lawsuits in the US and whose IRS (Internal Revenue Service) tax clearance we have awaited since promised in November 2013? He said last month he wanted $20 million for his next outing but he should in fact be preparing for his 2022 presidential run, not for bringing up more bread or datong.

We relentlessly continue lowering our standards.

Manny now pretends to play in the PBA of Jaworski. As Top House Absentee, Manny landed No. 7 in the Senate race. The Presidents of the US and here, mura ng mura, insulto ng insulto, libak ng libak, kutya ng kutya, atbp. Morality is the Church’s domain but the VACC, or Iglesia ni Dante Jimenez, thinks otherwise.

Bato junketed to Colombia and never said, to my recollection, that the circumstances are not the same as to waging a failed bloody policy on drugs. Colombia is now thinking of exporting marijuana to the US, say to California, where a new law legalizes it. What if Mexico, far away, and Thailand, nearby, say their bloody hardline policy did not succeed, either? Who will Digong call “stupid” or “idiot” next? In fact, nowhere has a bloody hardline expensive policy succeeded. The UN has long been discussing a new approach given the failure of a messy bloody policy, earlier tried in Thailand, Myanmar and Colombia. All failures. America’s billions have not made any difference, either.

Bato should have learned in Colombia that medical marijuana is legal there. Even recreational marijuana is now legal in California. Mary Jane has never been conclusively proven toxic, or as a problem like liquor, legal, from which we get huge sin taxes. “Demon rum,” or the “oil of conversation,” reportedly causes troubles in beerhouses when some soused-to-the-eyeballs singer belts “My Way,” off-key.

In Colombia, Bato met its police head honcho, Jorge Hernando Nieto, last September, and simply told us Digong needed a three-month extension to rid us of the drug menace, instead of telling us that Colombia had failed in its drug war. The extension has since been stretched to endure as long as Digong is Prez. What if he becomes Prime Minister? For life?

Bato is now saying things about Colombia which he did not say when he junketed there a few months ago. He could just have gone to the Internet or to Thailand, cheaper, and asked why its bloody hardline policy had also failed. In Thailand, in 2003, Thaksin Shinawatra launched a Digong-Bato-type all-out war. Bloody and messy, it bombed, government has admitted. Then the Myanmar fiasco; Pat Jasan has not worked there, either.

(Asean sees the return of the death penalty as a setback so we may remain the only barbarians in the region calling the rest bobo.)

Not a fiasco in the Manly Art of Modified Murder, money-wise, Manny Pacquiao, much of the world would concededly recognize as a sports great. Fine. We are glad that the Philippine Sportswriters Association has recognized many sports icons,as it did last Monday, nearly a hundred of them.

Once again, may I propose that we look for some way to honor Victoria Manalo Dravis, whose musikero father, Teofilo, came from Orani, Bataan. She won two golds in diving in the 1948 London Olympics, not as a Pinay. She passed away in 2010. A two-acre park in downtown San Fran is named after the dual citizen. She came home to acclaim in Orani more than a decade ago and was feted there for four days in her sentimental journey home.

Back to Digong, allocating billions to the Surigao calamity victims and increasing the pay of cops and soldiers without involving the House and Senate. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines should be heard but only the Surigao chapter has spoken out, after a lawyer there was EJKd. If the cops cannot prevent EJKs, at least they should solve them. The PNP will now go after illegal gambling? Casino, horseracing and cockfighting derbies for the wealthy allowed but not petty gambling for the poor. Rule of law and equal protection cheapened.

If Digong arguably cheapens the Medal of Valor, so does Manny trivialize the presidency. He seems to expect to be inaugurated on June 30, 2022 but wastes/spends his time boxing. Digong is a lawyer yet he allocates P2 billion of the people’s money for calamity victims, on his own. The people should be listened to, through their representatives.

If Digs does not listen to the AFP, he should listen to Mon Tulfo (and General Mon Farolan), on the supposedly cheapened Medal of Valor. Both Digs and Mon T have kids out of wedlock but to me, no illegitimate kids, only illegitimate parents. Bato need not blame wives for the frailties of their Tsikboy hubbies either; wives are more sinned against than sinning, if at all, and to some extent, kulasisis are victims too of opportunistic cads.

Is Digong setting a good example? How busy was he last February 14? Problems of being pogi, well-funded and/or powerful. Not being any of the three, I just had to bring flowers to my Dulce at Manila Memorial last Tuesday. Gone 10 years this November—the only one who could put up with me, as unhinged as Digong—she is sorely missed by one and all who came to know her. And I never forget how lucky I was, and am, reminiscing.

February 14 was when St. Valentine passed away and when Tsikboy JPE was born. And so was Kris Aquino, who had no favor really to seek from Digong for Noynoy, who may have committed errors of the mind—we all do—but not of the heart. No scienter or criminal intent then. Indeed, infallibility a Pope may have on matters of faith and morals but is not required of the presidency. Else, who would qualify?

Like I keep saying, only two perfect people I know, my late wife and a fellow Bedan, Justice Perfecto, Clase Superior 1905.

3 Comments

Little Tyrant Rodrigo Duterte truly must believe that there is nobody and nothing that could stop him from doing anything and everything that strikes his fancy, like shelling out P2 billion or even P10 billion for seismic and other supposed “victims.”

After all, what is he a Little Tyrant for? If he has with impunity imposed a REIGN OF TERROR on the Filipino people through his warrantless genocidal extra-judicial mass-murder of those he and “Bato” SUSPECT of engaging one way or the other in his specious Drug War, how does one logically question his misuse of P2 billion in public funds? That would be pure impertinance! He must think that he is free to personally spend even all of the nation’s P3 trillion annual budget! Joke lang?

The country can look eagerly forward to 2022 when political genius MANNY PACQUIAO gets elected President. With his high IQ–around 160 like Einstein’s?–and his solid experience as a Congressman and Senator, he will very likely make it possible for the Philippines finally to surmount its pejorative reputation as “The sick man of Asia!”

The unfortunate alternative, if Manny is not elected President, is that the Philippines, from being “The sick man of Asia,” could metamorphose into a DYSTOPIA. [Look that one up in Webster.]

Like punches from a good boxer, your comments don’t KO, but disables eventually closed-minded tutas of Du30, what with your covertly incisive comments on “which are jokes and which are for real” in Du30’s pronouncements. Indeed, his P2B largesse to the Surigao quake victims was most welcome, were it not for the knee-jerk circumstance of the act (was it merely to show off or braggadocio?). Confusing, bilog ulo, eventually, nakakatuliro. Kudos, Sir Saguisag!